Thus said Banda Singh:
I will uphold the dharma’s shield!
With all my might to thee I yield.
To do so I must lose this doubt
That I would now ask thee about.
How can I make the differentiation
If not by sect, creed, clan, race, or nation
‘Tween those who love dharma and those who do not:
I want to be sure I protect whom I ought.

Thus spoke Guru Gobind Singh:
In every great life comes a moment of test.
Thus have I faced both the worst and the best.
The evil are those who would oppose justice;
The allies support it and show that they trust us.
Many the Muslims who fought by my side;
Right beside me some of them bravely died
Defending the Truth for all to enjoy
Regardless the worship that they employ.
My Muslim disciples saved me from great dangers,
While some of the Sikhs turned from me like strangers,
One’s clan does not indicate if he is good,
But his heart and actions most certainly could.
One shouldn’t expect external signs to portray
What only the depth of the heart can convey.
It has little to do with religious systems,
With external customs or with narrow dictums.
So learn to look into the heart of a man -
That tells you much more than appearances can.
We Sikhs base our judgment on virtue, not creed.
A truly good man shows his worth by his deed.
We gladly accept all, and we will exclude none,
For after all, we are the same - we are the One.
A dialogue between Guru Gobind Singh and Banda Singh Bahadur

"The use of music for spiritual attainment and healing of the soul, which was prevalent in ancient times, is not found to the same extent now. Music has been made a pastime, the means of forgetting God instead of realizing God."
Hazrat Inayat Khan

"Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters."
Victor Hugo

"At the University of Life, you can make one of two choices. Either you can learn at the hands of the Teacher, or you can learn at the hands of Time." --

"Education is what you get from reading the small print. Experience is what you get from not reading it."
US Congressman Carl Albert

Having a bad day? Zen read this ...
It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.
Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windshield.
There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
Never miss a good chance to shut up.
Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed!
Zome Zen Notes

DEAR DR. WALLACE: I read your column regularly. I enjoy finding out the various concerns of teens and how you suggest that they go about solving their problems. But I must take issue with one of your statements. You said that couples who live together without being married are more likely to get a divorce once they do "tie the knot." I find this very difficult to believe. Where did you get this information? I'd really like to know. I'm 19 and so is my "live-in" boy friend, Jeff. We have a wonderful relationship and plan to get married next summer. We decided to live together to see if we were compatible. We definitely are. That's why we're getting married. Carmen -- New York

DEAR CARMEN: Brigham Young University conducted a study this year on cohabitation and found that when it comes to marriage, practice doesn't make perfect. Researcher Jeffrey Larson stated, "We find strong evidence that the marriages of those who lived together before getting married are less satisfied and more unstable than those who didn't." The study in which researchers reviewed 50 years of data showed that couples have a 50 percent greater chance of divorce if they lived together prior to marriage than those who didn't. Factors against living together before marriage include: later regret that couples had "violated" their moral standards; tension with parents over the live-in arrangement, and disillusionment when living together didn't make the marriage work.When partners who lived together marry, many times one or both "feel a loss of personal freedom" to take off when things go wrong. It also was noted that many of those who chose to live together without being married do so because they are poor marriage risks. The study further states that living together is not a trial marriage because of the psychological differences in both relationships. Presently, (1993) the US Census Bureau says that 6,085,284 unmarried, opposite-sex couples live together.
Dr. Robert Wallace

"Your value is not in how many experiences you have had. It is in your stability -- in how much sacrifice you can do. Your value is in how effectively and how consistently you can live for others. Your value is in how you can take command of yourself and others in any situation. Your value is in your capability of firmly planting yourself in the neutrality of your higher consciousness and standing as a pillar of strength, turning every negative to a positive.
Your value is how quickly you are there when the call comes."
Yogi Bhajan

"Happiness is not a reward -- it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment -- it is a result."
Robert Green Ingersoll

Ralph Waldo Emerson was of the opinion that any time is a good time if you know what to do with it. --

"The practice of medicine is so specialized today that each doctor is a healer of one disease and no more."
Herodotus - 430 BC

"The essence of a lady is a woman who has the ability to reveal everything yet compromises nothing." --

"A 100% natural product is one that the raw material has not been technically or physically treated with high temperatures, pressures, vacuum or chemicals, including chemical solvents and ingredients derived from petro or coal-tar chemistry which can tend to be carcinogenic. A reasonable standard for natural products is one that does not contain, in high or low concentrations, artificial color, fragrances, additives and chemical preservatives such as parabenes, urea derivatives or formaldehyde products."
Dr. Jurgen Klein

"A rich person is not one who has the most, but is one who needs the least."
The Interview with God

"Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
Satchel Page

"The most effective discipline always is administered through kindness." --

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
Jackie Robinson

"We do less all day than most people do before sunrise."
Maytag Repairman ad

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein

The Ten Commandments of How to Get Along With People
1) Keep skid chains on your tongue; always say less than you think. Cultivate a low, persuasive voice. How you say it often counts more than what you say.

2) Make promises sparingly, and keep them faithfully, no matter what it costs.

3) Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging word to or about somebody. Praise good work, regardless of who did it. If criticism is needed, criticize helpfully, never spitefully.

4) Be interested in others, their pursuits, and their work, their homes and families. Make merry with those who rejoice; with those who weep, mourn. Let everyone you meet, however humble, feel that you regard them as a person of importance.

5) Be cheerful. Don't burden or depress those around you by dwelling on your minor aches and pains and small disappointments. Remember that everyone is carrying some kind of a load.

6) Keep an open mind. Discuss but don't argue. It is a mark of a superior mind to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

7) Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves. Refuse to talk of another's vices.
Discourage gossip. It is a waste of valuable time and can be extremely destructive.

8) Be careful of another's feelings. Wit and humor at the other person's expense are rarely worth it and may hurt when least expected.

9) Pay no attention to ill-natured remarks about you. Remember that the person who carried the message may not be the most accurate reporter in the world. Simply live so that nobody will believe them. Disordered nerves and bad digestion are a common cause of backbiting.

10) Don't be too anxious about the credit due you. Do your best, and be patient. Forget about yourself, and let others "remember". Success is much sweeter that way.
Ann Landers

"Your value is in whether you can come through for someone. To serve is to succeed."
Hari Singh Khalsa

"Turn your wounds into wisdom. You will be wounded many times in your life. You'll make mistakes. Some …will call them failures, but I have learned that failure is really God's way of saying, 'Excuse me, you're moving in the wrong direction.'"
Oprah Winfrey

"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation."
H. H. Munro, AKA Saki

"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist."
Indira Gandhi

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
Yogi Berra

"A group of sheep led by a lion would always defeat a group of lions led by a sheep."
Egyptian proverb

"No religion can have political power without taking away our freedom."
Rev. James D. Farinet

"Suppose the Christian Coalition became known for transforming people's lives instead of trying to transform Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court?"
Cal Thomas

"While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it." --

"If you work for a man, in heaven's name, work for him. If he pays you wages, which supply your bread and butter, speak well of him; stand by him and the institution he represents. If put to a pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage -- resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. But as long as you are part of the institution, do not condemn it. If you do that, you are loosening the tendrils that are holding you to the institution, and by the first high wind that comes along, you will be uprooted and blown away, and probably will never know the reason why."
Elbert Hubbard

"Children need to see courageous adults holding marriages together whether they're in love or not. What they need to see is people being loving, responsible and mature, no matter how they feel."
Frank Pittman MD

"There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it."
Man Ray, Photographer and Artist

"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
Abraham Lincoln
(Tact ascribed to Bill Gates and Microsoft.)

In assessing religion's political role, "we must distinguish between orthodoxy and fundamentalism. Orthodoxy is a response to a religion's loss of piety. Whereas
fundamentalism is a religion's response to a loss of power." And, "it can happen that the two are connected."
Arvind Sharma Birks Professor of Religion, McGill University

"Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans."
Ann Landers

"To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves."
Will Durant

LIFE: "You cannot take hold of it, but you cannot lose it. In not being able to get it, you get it. When you are silent it speaks; when you speak, it is silent. "Let no wise man upset the mind of the ignorant, attached to action; but acting in union with Me, let him render all action attractive."
Bhagavad Gita

"Quality is like buying oats. If you want nice, clean, fresh oats, you must pay a fair price ... however, if you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse ... that comes a little cheaper!" --

A rural doctor's advice on how to avoid high blood pressure: "If it starts to rain, let it." --

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke - British leader who urged King George to avoid confrontation with the American colonies.

To My Children ...
"When I spill some food on my nice clean dress
Or maybe forget to tie my shoe,
Please be patient and perhaps reminisce
About the many hours I spent with you.
When I taught you how to eat with care,
Plus tying laces and your numbers, too.
Dressing yourself and combing your hair,
Those were precious hours spent with you.
So when I forget what I was about to say,
Just give me a minute - or maybe two.
It probably was not important anyway.
And I would much rather listen just to you.
If I tell the story one more time,
And you know the ending through and through,
Please remember your first nursery rhyme
When I rehearsed it a hundred times with you.
When my legs are tired and it’s hard to stand
Or walk the steady pace that I would like to do,
Please take me carefully by my hand,
And guide me now as I so often did for you."
From a reader of Ann Landers